Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Grumpy programmers

Have you ever had to work with that guy. The one who hates going to meetings. Ridicules the other developers. Sits by themselves rarely talking with anyone while "working". Sometimes they swear a lot, sometimes they often show up late to work and often they have little interest in showing someone else how their code works.

Have I been that guy? Honestly I can't say for sure I never have been. My programming idol Uncle Bob admits to being that guy once in his book Clean Coder.

There's a lot of old stereotypes around programming and computers in general. I've been told once to put up with a grumpy programmer on the promise he would work twice as fast as any other (if not faster). Turned out he was pretty clever but he wasn't any faster than the average for the team. And when he got really grumpy he got sloppy and produced some of the worst programming I've ever seen. So I've since resolved to never endure such behaviour and that any anti-social behaviour is potentially a problem.

A lot of programming issues are resolved through communication. Don't be the grumpy programmer. Don't ever think it's worth just "enduring" one.